Politics in NE ? (how much, inspectors, income)

[roots'nbulbs]

I'll tell you what it's like to hear about 'destructive corn farming' when you're here:
Imagine going to a University and accomplishing your music talent with an M.F.A. You specialize in piano and Baroque. But, to support yourself, you pick up a teacher's certificate and teach all venues. A well intentioned friend comes to visit and, to HELP you, presents you with a Kenny G disc. He's right--the stage that you're on can understand alternative as music and can demonize your specialization for undermining modernity. You've studied the situation and prepared for another mission. You just don't know what to say without being cavalier.

Politically, though, why aren't we growing more wheat in these wheat regions? When and why did we become corn? Dwell on that for awhile and you're departing from the Kennedy years. PIK ???

[dsrich98]

Originally Posted by roots'nbulbs

I'll tell you what it's like to hear about 'destructive corn farming' when you're here:
Imagine going to a University and accomplishing your music talent with an M.F.A. You specialize in piano and Baroque. But, to support yourself, you pick up a teacher's certificate and teach all venues. A well intentioned friend comes to visit and, to HELP you, presents you with a Kenny G disc. He's right--the stage that you're on can understand alternative as music and can demonize your specialization for undermining modernity. You've studied the situation and prepared for another mission. You just don't know what to say without being cavalier.

Politically, though, why aren't we growing more wheat in these wheat regions? When and why did we become corn? Dwell on that for awhile and you're departing from the Kennedy years. PIK ???

Not 100% sure I understand your analogy, but I'm sure it makes sense in some way??

I hear ya' The way our farm policy treats farmers is almost insulting in the way it de-values their skills and abilities.

[mattpoulsen]

Another thread...another tangent.

[MICHAEL J]

The problem with socialism is two fold.

First, socialism never works - begun with the absolute best of intentions, not a single social welfare program has ever accomplished the intented goal, come in on budget, or for that matter, ever been discontinued. When the socialists are confronted with the failure of these programs its always because there is never enough money. So what is the fix? We throw ever more and more money at it. But there's never the fix, the problem is never solved. I remember back in the 60's, about 68 I think (yes, I'm old) President Johnson vowed to elimate poverty, with about 10 billion dollars as I recall, we were going to stamp out poverty within 10 years. Well guess what, after spending hundreds of times more money than originally intended, and over 40 years later the poverty rate is virtually unchanged. The fix, obvously more money. And I supported him, I was a Democrat in the 60’s.

Secondly, socialist welfare programs always use someone elses money. Government does not, and cannot create wealth. All government can do is confiscate someone elses wealth. Remember, when the government gives you money, not only does that money come with a lot of strings ie: government control, but also never forget, that that money was earned by someone else. Someone else worked for and earned that money. Something in my heart tells me that just ain’t right.

I know our public school system does not do a good job of educating our children in American history anymore. But you know, we fought a war a while back for our freedoms. This wasn’t for freedom from corporations, it wasn’t for freedom from wall street, or bankers, or other so called evil enities. This war was fought for our freedom from oppressive government. Sadly, over the past century or so, we have slowly given up these hard fought for freedoms by willingly allowing our government to take more and more control over our lives and more and more of our hard earned money. A pretty famous guy once said “government is not the solution, government is the problem”.

After some time, and ever increasing confiscation of wealth, the producers in this sociaty either run out of money, or become fed up with the confiscation itself. Hence, the tea party movement. Government is not what makes this country great. Our hard fought for individual freedoms are what made this country the greatest country in the world.

[dsrich98]

Originally Posted by MICHAEL J

The problem with socialism is two fold.

First, socialism never works - begun with the absolute best of intentions, not a single social welfare program has ever accomplished the intented goal, come in on budget, or for that matter, ever been discontinued. When the socialists are confronted with the failure of these programs its always because there is never enough money. So what is the fix? We throw ever more and more money at it. But there's never the fix, the problem is never solved. I remember back in the 60's, about 68 I think (yes, I'm old) President Johnson vowed to elimate poverty, with about 10 billion dollars as I recall, we were going to stamp out poverty within 10 years. Well guess what, after spending hundreds of times more money than originally intended, and over 40 years later the poverty rate is virtually unchanged. The fix, obvously more money. And I supported him, I was a Democrat in the 60’s.

Secondly, socialist welfare programs always use someone elses money. Government does not, and cannot create wealth. All government can do is confiscate someone elses wealth. Remember, when the government gives you money, not only does that money come with a lot of strings ie: government control, but also never forget, that that money was earned by someone else. Someone else worked for and earned that money. Something in my heart tells me that just ain’t right.

I know our public school system does not do a good job of educating our children in American history anymore. But you know, we fought a war a while back for our freedoms. This wasn’t for freedom from corporations, it wasn’t for freedom from wall street, or bankers, or other so called evil enities. This war was fought for our freedom from oppressive government. Sadly, over the past century or so, we have slowly given up these hard fought for freedoms by willingly allowing our government to take more and more control over our lives and more and more of our hard earned money. A pretty famous guy once said “government is not the solution, government is the problem”.

After some time, and ever increasing confiscation of wealth, the producers in this sociaty either run out of money, or become fed up with the confiscation itself. Hence, the tea party movement. Government is not what makes this country great. Our hard fought for individual freedoms are what made this country the greatest country in the world.

Where the heck did all this come from? Keep drinking that tea buddy.

[MICHAEL J]

Originally Posted by dsrich98

Where the heck did all this come from? Keep drinking that tea buddy.

If you don't get it, I can't help you.

If you dispute anything I said, lay it out.

[DTO Luv]

So it's only socialist welfare programs that use other peoples money? I pay taxes and "my" money could be used perpetuating an illegal war that's killing innocents and our own soldiers needlessly. Is the army magically getting it's money from a different revenue source than the food stamp program? No. Someone else's money is being spent to fund the army. It doesn't generate it's own money anymore than food stamps do.

People need to learn what socialism really is and what it means. I told my hard-right mother that this weekend. She was throwing it around this after watching Palin's Tea Party speech and Q&A session. When I asked her if she even knew what socialism was she couldn't answer me. I imagine many people would be the same.

The USA already has varying degrees of socialism. Many countries in the world have it too but the socialism in Sweden isn't the same socialism as the one in Venezuela.

If you have a police department, fire department, health inspectors, building inspectors, an army or any other service provided by government to provide some standards of ensuring your well being than you live in a society that has socialism. Guess what, that's the USA.

Socialism isn't a form of government that will cure all of societies ills, it's a way to mitigate them to as low of a realistic level as possible for the benefit of the whole. This country was much more socialist 50 years ago when people were put to work by the government building this country up and going to school on the government and getting houses on the government. It was better to have everyone working instead of having large groups of people not working. Ironically it's the people who decry socialism the most that want the country to hearken back to "glory days" when in fact the rich paid much more in taxes and many more people recieved assitance from the government.

[dsrich98]

Originally Posted by MICHAEL J

If you don't get it, I can't help you.

If you dispute anything I said, lay it out.

I get it. It just doesn't have anything to do with Nebraska politics. No one was talking about socialism and then *BOOM* in came the anti-communist manifesto. Seemed a little out of should I say "left" field.

[dsrich98]

Originally Posted by DTO Luv

So it's only socialist welfare programs that use other peoples money? I pay taxes and "my" money could be used perpetuating an illegal war that's killing innocents and our own soldiers needlessly. Is the army magically getting it's money from a different revenue source than the food stamp program? No. Someone else's money is being spent to fund the army. It doesn't generate it's own money anymore than food stamps do.

People need to learn what socialism really is and what it means. I told my hard-right mother that this weekend. She was throwing it around this after watching Palin's Tea Party speech and Q&A session. When I asked her if she even knew what socialism was she couldn't answer me. I imagine many people would be the same.

The USA already has varying degrees of socialism. Many countries in the world have it too but the socialism in Sweden isn't the same socialism as the one in Venezuela.

If you have a police department, fire department, health inspectors, building inspectors, an army or any other service provided by government to provide some standards of ensuring your well being than you live in a society that has socialism. Guess what, that's the USA.

Socialism isn't a form of government that will cure all of societies ills, it's a way to mitigate them to as low of a realistic level as possible for the benefit of the whole. This country was much more socialist 50 years ago when people were put to work by the government building this country up and going to school on the government and getting houses on the government. It was better to have everyone working instead of having large groups of people not working. Ironically it's the people who decry socialism the most that want the country to hearken back to "glory days" when in fact the rich paid much more in taxes and many more people recieved assitance from the government.

This is all true true true

[mattpoulsen]

Its also worth noting that anyone who holds fast only to one ideological extreme is by definition an ideologue. No successful system is void of market principles and no successful system can be void of socialism. Anyone who doesn't understand this really has no clue what they're talking about.

As DTO pointed out government ran entities are all around us and work relatively well. On the other hand, market principles are not by nature evil.

I'm a fiscal conservative, but that does not mean i think ALL social programs should be discontinued! It means that i want government minimized to the most efficient size. Some things simply can't be handled using market principles. And likewise many things can't be handled efficiently with a bureaucratic decision making process.

I just wish as grown ups we could actually discuss the ACTUAL state of reality as opposed to the various Candylands the endless number of ideologues preach ad nausem about.